My first year of college was a combination of many different feelings: a little fear, nervousness, sadness, stress, and a lot of excitement. As my summer came to a close and I started to pack all my belongings for the new year at college, it dawned upon me how quickly the past year has gone by. It gave me a chance to reflect a little bit on how my freshman year of college was and what I hope to accomplish for my second year of college.

One thing I have learned about myself is about my fear of trying new things and stepping out of my comfort zone. I have a tendency to overthink things, and I spend too much time playing out scenarios in my head that often never pan out. Consequently, I get too scared and I refrain from trying something new that I know I want to do. I noticed that there were one too many times where I didn’t say a dissenting opinion I may have had or I didn’t join a club for fear of being ostracized. Then, I look at my friends who do take the chances that I wanted to but decided against, and they seem to reap the benefits of the decisions they make. For my next year, I want to tell myself to “feel the fear and do it anyway,” as author Susan Jeffers has said.

The second thing I want to accomplish this year is to put 100% effort in everything I do, consistently. I realized that the more responsibilities I took on, the more tired I became, which in turn increased my tendency to put in less effort later on. For example, towards the end of last year, I found myself being less excited to go to meetings, waiting until the last minute to complete work for some clubs, and sometimes just checking out of everything and going to sleep. If I have too much on my plate, then I want to be able to learn to cut down and say no to what I cannot handle, and really put in the time and effort necessary to be the best at whatever I do decide to take on.

Lastly, I realize the speed at which time flies makes me nervous on how quickly everything is happening. So my goal for the second and future years is to learn to enjoy the now. I have spent too many nights agonizing over the amount of work I have to do in an upcoming week or wishing for the next break so that I don’t have to do any more homework and can sleep. But then I realize that in that fixedness, I forget to have fun in the moment or to find things that make me genuinely happy. Worrying about the future never really fixes anything, so I might as well learn to be happy in the present.